Die Press

Anyone care to recommend a good die press with a small footprint for poker-sized cards? We want a press that can bite through about 100 cards at a time. We're hoping for one with a footprint no bigger than about 4' x 4'.

I've got a few on my list, by die cutting is not my area of expertise.

BTW -- has anyone talked to the Ellison folks about paying to custom craft poker-sized dies for their machine?

Those are side-by-side bridge sized cards. The _poker_ part of it was the important thing. Just for clarification, that's why I'm asking if anyone has got a price quote on custom crafting one of these things.

I bet if we talked them into making one for the less expensive Sizzix (if the machine is even capable of handling a die big enough to cut a playing card, I've never seen a Sizzix up close) and asked to make them in bulk, I bet we could get a bunch of those things sold on BGDF.

The Sizzix is actually affordable as a design tool for prototyping.

Still, the call is also out for info on heavy duty die press systems that can cut through 100+ cards but which aren't the size of my house. Any recommendations? I've seen a few, but I know nothing about the manufacturers of these babies.

The Sizzix is plenty large enough for one card. The largest die size they sell for the Sizzix is almost big enough to handle two poker-sized cards, but not quite.

Sorry, no info on the bigger die.`

-- Matthew

As an FYI, they said the following:

they might consider doing a one card Sizzix die, but we'd probably have to order 50+ of them. No details on cost. Probably $40-80 each. They'd be a little flimsy. Not a lot of profit in it for them. They need to order lots of custom materials.

For the Ellison they said they could make a 2-card poker-sized die for about $55, and for under $85 they could make one that could cut out 8 poker-sized cards at a time, but that die fits only in their prestige machines. We could probably get volume discounts on these I bet.

These dies (unlike some on their website) would be made with the blades set in acrylic so that you can see through the die to line it up. Not nearly as necessary for the full page die. Very necessary for the two card side-by-side die.

I agree that the acrylic die would be especially good -- I'd like it for the 8-up as well. If there was actually an 8-up poker-sized die (with nice, tight rounded corners, around p6 radius or so) for the Prestige, I'd find a way to purchase one.

I'd buy the one-up Sizzix one, too, in a flash.

I would think that the 8-up Prestige version would work for your POD needs, Lee. A lot of work, perhaps, but potentially not prohibitive.

Obviously (though perhaps not to the Ellison people) the die would have to be perfect. That is, every card would have to be absolutely identically sized. For the 1-up Sizzix version it's no biggie, as long as there's no keystoning and the angles are perfect 90s.

The machine cost about $600 and I paid another $400 + - for a 21 up Bridge card size die. This is a full cut, not micro-perf. I use this for prototyping.

I print on 13X19 card stock. 1 pass. 21 cards. It's a beautiful thing. Front and back registration for printing can be a little tough, but I've got the die registration nailed.

Regarding the die cutter Lee is looking for, I belive the machine is called a ram punch. The die is referred to as a hallow die.

Basically, you print your cards with a forgiving border design, slice them up into cards slightly lareger than the finished size, put them in a channel, and then a ram punches them through a hollow die. ( Think of a log splitter )

Most die cutting involves having the die apply pressure to the paper. This method actually pushes the oversized cards through a stationary die. Works pretty good actually if you cant afford a rollem :)

I've seen these with as small a footprint as 3' X 6' making cards quite nicely.

I have no idea what the ram punch costs, but I belive the hallow dies are $1100 +

I agree that the acrylic die would be especially good -- I'd like it for the 8-up as well. If there was actually an 8-up poker-sized die (with nice, tight rounded corners, around p6 radius or so) for the Prestige, I'd find a way to purchase one.

It'd be harsh, around $450 for the total package (Prestige + custom die). But it would be cool.

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I'd buy the one-up Sizzix one, too, in a flash.

I would think that the 8-up Prestige version would work for your POD needs, Lee. A lot of work, perhaps, but potentially not prohibitive.

One of my business partners and I discussed this today. We are desperately trying to cut a few machines out the equation. One partner is in NY, another in Canada, and I'm in MA.

I'd use this locally for prototyping, and then use another system (probably in Canada) for production. I shared the info here 'cause I know people are always asking about Ellison dies and Ellison seems bad at returning emails (from what people have told me).

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Obviously (though perhaps not to the Ellison people) the die would have to be perfect. That is, every card would have to be absolutely identically sized.

Therein lies the problem, sir. I doubt they'd guarantee us that. The only way to get that is to run everything through the same darned die. These folks custom manufacture these things and not to industrial specifications, just to "make classroom kids happy" specifications. They wouldn't be off by much, but I'd be way surprised if they were perfect for the 8 up full page die.

That's why I'd use it just for prototyping. It's probably more convenient than punching out card blanks out of a microperforated sheet.

Carl Schulte (my partner in NY) combined my idea with his. He said we could make oversized cards that are microperforated horizontally and vertically, spending a few minutes per deck tearing the cards apart. We'd build the cards side-by-side with no space in between. They'd tear apart. Each card would be about a 1/4" larger in every dimension than normal. Then we stack these oversized cards and run them through a single die.

It's lets us use a smaller die press, grants greater uniformity (since every card we make goes through one and only one die) and saves us a machine at the cost of a couple of minutes of labor per deck.

It may take a bit more labor (which is to be considered), but it lets us do away with having a huge slitter machine (which to us is a plus).

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For the 1-up Sizzix version it's no biggie, as long as there's no keystoning and the angles are perfect 90s.

I sort of got the feeling that the Sizzix die would be somewhat flimsy. They'd have to get super thin acrylic and custom mount a blade in the stuff.

Sounded sketchy to me. The dies for the Ellison sounded like they might not shatter at the drop of the hat.

The machine cost about $600 and I paid another $400 + - for a 21 up Bridge card size die. This is a full cut, not micro-perf. I use this for prototyping.

I'd have to consider price point vs. speed. The Ellison die and prestige press will do about 8 cards at a time (poker sized), and costs a lot less. But this sounds like it has a much larger cutting area.

Still, it sounds perfect for prototyping. For microperforating we wouldn't use something like this at all. We'd want a single high quality die for that, and we'd outsource that business.

So I'm looking for the big die cutting machine for the guys in Canada, and one small, less accurate prototyping die cutter here for me and my playtesters.

Good call, Tom. Thanks for the info.

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I print on 13X19 card stock. 1 pass. 21 cards. It's a beautiful thing. Front and back registration for printing can be a little tough

Is that taken care of if you use a common black border around the cards or a common bleed to make the missed registration a bit less obvious?

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Regarding the die cutter Lee is looking for, I belive the machine is called a ram punch. The die is referred to as a hollow die.

Dead on. I looked at a few over the last month or two. No clue about which brand is reliable.

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Most die cutting involves having the die apply pressure to the paper. This method actually pushes the oversized cards through a stationary die. Works pretty good actually if you cant afford a rollem :)

Yup. My business partners will have few coronaries if I propose methods costing less than the gross national product of Lichtenstein :-)

I haven't checked with Rollem yet, but I heard one of their highest end machines costs close to $750,000 new. OUCH!!

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I have no idea what the ram punch costs, but I belive the hallow dies are $1100 +

Some. Definitely. The brand is the big question. Hmmm. Perhaps for another day.

The machine cost about $600 and I paid another $400 + - for a 21 up Bridge card size die. This is a full cut, not micro-perf. I use this for prototyping.

I print on 13X19 card stock. 1 pass. 21 cards. It's a beautiful thing. Front and back registration for printing can be a little tough, but I've got the die registration nailed.
Wow, that sounds beautiful. Is the die effectively "perfect," as I described above?

And doesn't Ellison own Accucut, or vice versa? Seems like I read that somewhere. If so, grrr.

Nope, chum. I was responding to Tom. That's why I said thanks to you (implying Tom), Matthew, and Michael (who also responded).

Again, I think this is my day for ambiguous sentence constructions. That probably came across like:

"Thanks to you, Matthew and Michael."

But I meant:

"Thanks to you, Matthew, and Michael." That extra comma makes all the difference.

That is unless you want to be clear, in which case I should just pull out words like "you" when speaking to 3 people at once. Lesson learned.

BTW -- I think Michael posted. I'm half blind and can barely read even what I'm typing (which is why my responses are longish -- I'm at home ill today and I like participating, but I can't read all the threads I want to due to a vision problem I have).

This is some good stuff. Some of this stuff definitely needs to be poured over and put into a wiki document. I am looking into some new wiki software that may better serve our needs. I will keep you guys posted.